Cosy Christmas ✓

13 / epilogue

           

The Christmas season was doomed to be a busy one. After spending the twenty-second to the twenty-fourth with Connor's parents and with plans to spend a few days with Posy's over the new year, there wasn't much time to relax but for once, Connor felt no stress as he laid Phoebe in her cot not long before midnight on Christmas Eve. They'd got back quite a bit later than expected, the roads busy as people made sure they were home for the holidays, and she had fallen asleep as soon as they had got in the car long past her bedtime. Now, she didn't stir as Connor put her to bed and he kissed her goodnight, brushing blonde curls off her forehead. She was the spitting image of her mother already, her eyes having darkened to a deep chocolate brown and her cheeks dimpling whenever she grinned.

He would be lying if he said that that year had been easy. But he would also be lying if he said that it hadn't been the best of his life. For three hundred and seventy-two days, he had been by Posy's side every step of the way as she had navigated the toughest twelve months of her life, holding her hand and holding her up every time she had come across a hurdle. He had helped her over every single one with infinite patience and a warm smile, and of all the things he had learnt since the beginning of the year, one lesson stood out above the rest.

She was the one.

When he turned around to switch off Phoebe's bedroom light, Posy was standing in the doorway with her arms folded under her chest, gazing at him as he put her daughter to bed, and the softest smile illuminated her lips. The light of the hallway cast an angelic glow behind her and his heart seized at the sight. Every time he laid eyes on her, he became even more convinced of what he had already known, and even as she stood in her oversized pyjamas with her hair pulled off her bare face, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

When he was a couple of feet away, she took his hand and pulled him down to her, stretching up to kiss him with one hand on the back of his head. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and she hummed her contentment against his lips.

Though Connor had spent almost every day at her house for a whole year now, it wasn't until the summer that he had officially moved in and put his house on the market. It had sold within a week, and they had watched as a new family had moved into number eighty-four. With three young children, the family had brought down the average age of the village, and Connor had loved to see the happiness that his old house brought them.

Posy curled her fingers around his, and she pulled her daughter's door shut behind them. "It's nearly midnight," she murmured, pulling him towards their room. The house felt like a home at last, snatching minutes and hours for months to bring life to the place, and the spare room had eventually ceased to be used for storage and now, it frequently housed Cass when she needed a break from her housemates. She had found friends to live with for her last year of university, and Connor found that he missed her after the seven months for which they had lived together.

"Can you believe it's been a year?" Posy sat on the edge of the bed, tying her hair in a plait before she slept. "I thought time was passing so slowly but now it's Christmas again and Phoebe's almost one. Can you believe that?"

"Not quite," Connor said with a chuckle. He unbuttoned the shirt he'd worn for a church service earlier that evening, draping it over a chair as he exchanged it for a scrappy t-shirt that had seen every kind of stain since Phoebe had come along. Kicking off his jeans, he brushed his teeth in his tiny en-suite bathroom and caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was still two years away from thirty, but there were more lines around his eyes than there had been this time last year, the evidence of every smile that had made his eyes sparkle and every crease in his cheek when his grin had reached his ears.